OpenGeofiction
Looking for suggestions on making Remiville's street grid plans be more realistic
Posted by BelpheniaProject on 20 June 2015 in English.Hello! I’m bored, so I came here for the day to look for suggestions and advice on my capital city Remiville in Belphenia.
I worked on Belphenia and my capital city for eight months now since I came here. I recently claimed UL312 weeks ago and finished that territory within one week because the islands were small. Okay, back to Belphenia. I am doing my best to make my capital city to be a big city. I haven’t been rushing through the project, so I decided to take my time to experiment the features I can use while mapping in JOSM.
As for the streets near downtown Remiville, I am planning to redo the street grid plans to make them more realistic than what I made upon claiming UL016 in October 2014. And speaking of freeways, how can I make the freeways near the downtown area be more realistic? Am I adding too many trunk or primary roads? I’m a fan of roads and I’m one of the AARoads.com members too, so I am considering to make my capital city’s street grid plans be more realistic. So I’m going to look at the real-life Tokyo and Dubai for ideas often. And for the residential areas, the grid plan is different when I came up with my own street grid plan, like the one in the Scarlet Heart district north of downtown, it’s mostly residential.
Somewhere in May 2015, I went on a residential road rampage in the Olympia and Scarlet Heart, and Summerdragon districts.
Some street names, even city names in or around Remiville may have to be retired. I am also planning to have some name change plans for the affected areas. Most of the time, I had to rely on the street/city name generator because sometimes I could not come up with my own street and city names. Some street names I invented, I am working on giving them meanings about where the names are derived from.
And the airport between Magehaven and Diamond Moon, I need some ideas on the Remiville International Airport. I added a nearby hotel district by the airport and redone the terminal areas and the runways.
So what do you think about my city’s street grid plans? If you find any errors, then I will fix them soon when I get a chance. I’m here looking for suggestions or advice on working on Remiville when it comes to realism.
P.S. I would like to thank Isleno for giving me advice on how to write history to be more natural and believable for the three countries, Belphenia (my main territory), Erzaleria, and Maydien. There’s no need for me to write every territory of mine involving Belphenia, so I can make lots of drafts about the three countries when I’m off from OGF. Again, thanks a lot Isleno!
Discussion
Comment from joschi81 on 20 June 2015 at 01:12
Hi! I think you don’t have to worry, Remiville looks pretty realistic already. I’m impressed! However, I have a few suggestions:
In the city center, there are to many main roads, in my point of view. I think it would be more realistic (and more inviting to walk around there!) if ther were less primary or secondary streets. I would suggest to redo some of the streets as residential. And why not put a few pedestrian streets? Even if you like roads very much, having some car-free areas would make it more interesting in my point of view.
As for the trunk roads: Yes, in my point of view there are too many. I understand that you like to have a well developed network of trunk roads and freeways, but it’s still a bit too much. I would propose to completely remove Ezra Road (BR 95). Even the eastern part of Greridia Road could be removed (the tunnel east of the center and the part more to the east. As for the north-south roads within the city center, maybe remove Fogmere Skyway? It looks nice, but I think it’s a bit “overdone”, the other freeways are enough for the city center. And you could even remove one more north-soth bridge, there are many. People could enjoy the warterfront better when there less bridges. I understand that there have to be enough lanes to handle the traffic in a good way, but maybe then just imagine the other bridges having more lanes :) In other parts of the city, maybe remove one or two trunk roads or “downgrade” them primery or secondary, but generally it’s ok like you did it.
The airport: I think it’s a bit too large. I would remove both northwastern runways and maybe add a fourth runway south of the main terminal buildings (so that you have two times two parallel runways. Also be careful with the length of the runways, There is no need for runways longer than 4km, in most cases 3 or 3.5 km are enough.
Railways: I see that your country is car-dominated and that railways don’t play an important role. However, wouldn’t it be great to have at least a few lines connecting the main cities within the country? I think having a central station somewhere near the city center would be good. (I can draw it, if you wish and if you propose a location.) From the station, maybe there is only one small railway line running out of the city and then dividing into three or four branches at the edge of the city. This is only a suggestion. If you don’t want a railway network at all, then just forget what I wrote. :)
Once again: Your city looks amazing and I only made a few “nice-to-have” proposals.
Comment from Luciano on 20 June 2015 at 03:13
I agree with joschi81, on first view you have done a very realistic job on the street layout - better and more interesting than the boring grid I put in place in Villa Constitución (which is still gradually evolving to something more realistic).
It definitely adds to realism that you have taken the time to name most of your streets and neighborhoods - that’s an aspect that is missing in many people’s projects. I really like that!
I agree with joschi’s points about the airport and railways, but you don’t have to build passenger railways if you don’t want to - some fairly modern countries definitely lack passenger railways, for example Brazil has almost none and Mexico only has suburban railways around the capital. But even countries that lack passenger rail still have extensive and important freight networks, which would definitely add to your city’s realism - generally major industrial areas “follow the rails,” for example.
Comment from isleño on 20 June 2015 at 20:39
Hey, thanks for the shout out. Just trying to make life easier for you. :-)
I agree Remiville looks good so far, and Joschi81 and Luciano make some helpful points. Perhaps the biggest challenge will be simply finding the time to fill in the rest of the city… it seems like there’s still definitely a lot to build. And even once you finish that, the next big challenge is making a city “blend” seamlessly into the surrounding rural landscape, which can be really hard.
I’ve been meaning to commend you on Erzaleria, btw. I think it’s looking quite nice. I’ve found it can be really fulfilling to focus on a small area and bring it to a high level of quality. So thanks again, and keep up the great work.